Memories
by gottalovett
Summary: Harry remembers his time with Ruth. Spoilers for up to episode 5.5


_Disclaimer: I do not own Spooks or its characters. The BBC does._

_Also any quote mistakes are mine. I was going off my memory._

Blank. Unconcerned. In control. Did the covering lies never end? He wasn't stone, he had feelings like the rest of the poor sodding, not quite so miserable world, he had feelings like everyone else. Only it was his role to never break, never strain, never crack like fragile glass, even when his whole world had fallen apart around him.

He'd never been an idealist, never a hopeful romantic; he'd always known that in this job emotion was made for using, for controlling, not for shameless self pity.

But human beings were imperfect creatures and saying pretentious shit was one thing, and living that shit was another.

Yes, even MI5 knew that, but the habit of facade was a hard one to break.

"You're not paying attention," the decidedly irritating voice of the service's resident psychiatrist said, breaking Harry's chain of thoughts. The whole thing was a wank. What did the service care about what went on beneath anyway as long as he got the job done? It was all just words and impressions and a bloody big waste of his time.

Harry could feel a headache coming on; the swift onset of stress induced pressure. Zaf was missing, probably already dead and he had two of his officers putting themselves in danger and oh for God's sake, what was taking Connie so long to come to his rescue?

He said the first things that came into his head, hoping he wouldn't slip up.

"Chocolate buttons."

"Red."

The psychiatrist leant forward and struck. "Missing."

Harry said nothing.

"Missing," she repeated, pen poised at the ready, eyes disgustingly eager and a little bit exultant. It wasn't every day that you got to analyse the head of MI5 after all.

"Something. Someone," he said carefully.

"One word," the woman snapped.

That word was clamouring to come out, rushing, tumbling over and over as though a word could somehow bring a person back. Ruth. Ruth. Ruth. Ruth.

_Ruth._

He could have kissed Connie when she burst through the door at that precise moment. He reconsidered when she asked him caustically about Lady Pierce.

* * *

Where are you Ruth? I need you."

"Harry?"

"I need you in more ways than one." He was remembering their dinner date. They'd discussed travel destinations.

"New York," she'd said firmly.

"No, Paris."

"Oh Harry, where's your sense of Atlanticism?"

He caught her gaze and held it. "Where's your sense of romance?"

She was skittish. A napkin twisted in her small hands and her rather eccentric ring loomed large in his face. He wished he'd been the one to put it there. He wished he had the guts to reach for her hand. He didn't. The moment passed and they were onto work and bombs and philosophical questions of humanity's depravation. _And its greatness_.

That was comfortable, that was safe.

They'd both gotten a taxi home, having both drunk rather a lot of fine wine. It wouldn't do for MI5 agents to be caught over the limit. He'd insisted on going with her of course. "There are all those stories of taxi rapists Ruth." She's agreed half reluctantly, half with surprised pleasure.

The traffic had been shocking that night. The ten minute drive had become a half hour one. Tired and not used to the drink, Ruth's head had edged closer and closer to his shoulder. Her dark hair tickled his nostrils, and he remembered thinking that her perfume was at that second the most beautiful thing on earth.

"Two pounds, ten," the taxi driver demanded authoritively, jolting Ruth awake as Harry searched his coat pocket for some change.

At the door to her house, she had stood small and awkward. "Goodnight Harry." The shyness wasn't going away any time soon.

"Ruth."

She tried again. "Don't. Please. Tonight was lovely."

"Ruth, we're not in high school," he said, much as one might have stated we're not in Kansas anymore. "It doesn't matter what people think about us, it doesn't matter that we work together. What does matter is that we both," here he paused, "we both care for each other."

"I can't. I don't want them laughing at us."

"They'll never know."

"No," she'd said quietly, seriously. "But we'd know you and me both."

He moved closer and tried to touch her hand on the door, but stopped when she bit her lip in distress. "Things would be different, can't you see that?"

_Of course I can see that. It doesn't matter Ruth. It would never have mattered because we would have been together._

"Harry," Ros snapped, "are you listening to me at all? We need to get Adam away from Ana."

"Ros. Sorry. You were saying?"

* * *

He'd kept himself so busy with trying to find Zaf that the dull ache of what was missing didn't feel quite so bad. But then came home time and there was no bright, if brittle smile awaiting him from a plain desk as he exited the grid, and no one caught the bus home late anymore.

He managed the onslaught of memories alright till he got home. He'd have his soggy takeaway, this time greasy salty chips, for dinner. There were no longer home cooked packages awaiting him on the doorstep every Sunday night. Just a bottle of whiskey, a heavy tumbler glass and a plethora of cats.

He flicked the TV on, grunted angrily at the news and switched it off again as Fidget clambered into his lap. It occurred to him, head pressed to cold palms, that as much as psychiatrists set his teeth on edge, it might have been a relief to say her name out loud, just once to a person and not to an inanimate object or a cat; to have told someone how he felt, to share his living Hell with another.

There was no one. Connie hadn't been around, Adam was wrapped up in his own grief and guilt, Jo was just doing her job and Ros; well Ros was Ros and who knew what was going on in her head.

Perhaps it was better after all, Harry reflected, to tell nobody at all, to keep this particular story kept locked up inside. It was his story, it was Ruth's story and it was something special and tender and _private_. Ruth would not have wanted Harry to talk about it to outsiders.

_Ruth_.

He was no longer on his comfortable couch in a central heated house with someone else's cat licking his hand. He was on a deserted, dirty dock, face to face with someone who was someone worth a lot. He'd been such a fool never to tell her that.

"If I don't say it now I never will."

She'd known. All the awkward embarrassment fell away. Perhaps the adrenaline of the last few days had made her reckless, perhaps finality forced out honesty.

"Please don't say anything. Just leave it as something that was never said. Something wonderful." Her hands were around his face. "Something wonderful that was never said."

She smiled with just a touch of sadness, and kissed him, kissed him properly, unreservedly, without fear and it was the most beautiful moment in his whole life.

Love me tender.

Love me true.

Watch as I leave

Never to live with you.

He had watched her leave, trying to keep his expression schooled to calm. It didn't help. He had watched till her face and the ship carrying her from him was a mere blot on the ocean and turned away. Walking through the park home the couples seemed to be openly mocking him.

Because his world was beautiful and transformed. His world was changed. His world had turned into a Shakespeare play and his heart had stretched taut and broken in two.

The irony was that with his job, no one would ever know.


End file.
